[pe2-image src=”http://lh6.ggpht.com/-9O8Sqh8Bjl8/VJMW-qpEPTI/AAAAAAAAjqg/gw-wVEIbPSI/s144-c-o/IMG_0785.JPG” href=”https://picasaweb.google.com/112133179186774955122/SouthAmericaSection3Stage21Brazil3NatalToSalvador#6094239986616646962″ caption=”Riacho Tabatinga had a paradise like beach” type=”image” alt=”IMG_0785.JPG” ]

Highlights: Paddler’s paradise!
Lowlights: No time and mood for snorkeling…
Launch: Low dumper
Landing: Sheltered reef beach
Pos: here
Loc: Riacho Tabatinga
Acc: tent
Dist: 49,0 km
Start: 4:35 End: 14:35

One more day in paddler’s paradise! A sheltering reef to the left, a calm beach to the right, calm water to paddle on, a lot to look and to navigate around shallows on sandy or rocky reefs, light following wind, not too hot, easy landing and beautiful campsite.What do I need more? I think I deserve it for now… 🙂

It is amazing how the water temperature can change in the reef area, from reasonable cool 24 degrees where there is few shelter to bathtub hot 35 degrees on the sandy shallows. Also the range of colors of the water is magnificent – deep blue where the water is deep, turquoise green over sand, white on sandy reefs (or on glacier rivers…), brown on river outlets and everything in between. The world is so colorful! If Sao Jose de Coroa Grande,the last city in the state of Permambuco, was still mostly a fishing village, at Maragogi, the first city in Alagoas state, is the grand area of reef tourism. Crystal clear water, on low tide you can walk out to wide reef fields, either from the beach or what most people do with a catamaran platform boat made to shuffle tourists out to the outer reefs to snorkel and dive. Not sure about the frequency of the latter, I saw few especially made diving boats.

[pe2-image src=”http://lh3.ggpht.com/-spB2wyWl_wc/VJMWqjpZzYI/AAAAAAAAjqA/I3AlLwhohYc/s144-c-o/IMG_0772.JPG” href=”https://picasaweb.google.com/112133179186774955122/SouthAmericaSection3Stage21Brazil3NatalToSalvador#6094239641141628290″ caption=”One of those floating tourist pontoon boats at Maragogi shoveling people out to the reefs to explore them” type=”image” alt=”IMG_0772.JPG” ]

Boats of all kind were anchored at Maragogi, and on such a beautiful Saturday morning they got mostly very busy at 9 am to catch the good low tide time to show the exposed reefs to the tourists. I surely preferred to be my own captain on my own boat… but amazingly I felt no urge to snorkel myself.Just the thought of having my long hair wet after that…I had so many salt water impacts the last months! And not that I haven’t seen any reefs before…still always again amazing.

[pe2-image src=”http://lh4.ggpht.com/-GCXmboXADXk/VJMW9pEChCI/AAAAAAAAjqQ/E79vmK8nr6I/s144-c-o/IMG_0782.JPG” href=”https://picasaweb.google.com/112133179186774955122/SouthAmericaSection3Stage21Brazil3NatalToSalvador#6094239969013040162″ caption=”This river mouth beach at Riacho Tabatinga had a bunch of trash cans provided to keep the beach clean. Nice!” type=”image” alt=”IMG_0782.JPG” ] [pe2-image src=”http://lh6.ggpht.com/-AXPmSBLjDIg/VJMW0esZ1HI/AAAAAAAAjqI/FIqhlLIz9vo/s144-c-o/IMG_0780.JPG” href=”https://picasaweb.google.com/112133179186774955122/SouthAmericaSection3Stage21Brazil3NatalToSalvador#6094239811610727538″ caption=”Camp at Riacho Tabatinga” type=”image” alt=”IMG_0780.JPG” ]

At the end of the day the reefs became all sand, and you had only the shelter of the reef break, but not too interesting areas in the water. A day like this could go on until Buenos Aires, if it would be for me…

I didn’t want to stop before I had my ten hour full paddling day, as the temptation to go in was everywhere and all easy. I hit it right on a river outlet bar, inside I have a lake, and I even made a short beach walk out to a beautiful sandy spit inside the river. This would have been the absolute spot, but there were people when I passed by. I was delighted to see well maintained garbage cans in such beautiful nature areas every 100 meters, and they were even filled and few trash was lying around. As being tidy German perfectionist, I was picking the last few trash and dumped it into the cans, just to have done something good…:-)
One more of those days tomorrow!